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This Chance

The following is a “double drabble,” or a vignette told in precisely 200 words. In the spirit of the upcoming Valentines day, I’ve gone sentimental.

*****

This is the chance I’m taking. These are the words I’m saying. Every path is fraught with risk, all words breathed as dangerous as any words that sit tongue-trapped. To love, to fail to love, to find no love—well. It’s all of a piece, isn’t it?

“I love you.”

There, I’ve said it, and it was as bad an idea as any. I’ll come to regret it, and only you and time and life and I will tell whether I regret it in two heartbeats, or a score of days, in a year, or ten. Only time and you and I and life will tell whether the regret lasts longer than its worth.

But this is the chance I’ve taken, and these are the words I spoke, and in this glowing moment, with my heart and face burning like a white-hot iron, and just as ready to be beaten and flattened by a cruel hammer, with the words unfurling on the air and waiting, right now, I’m glad of my choice.

(A risk? I know, but what on earth isn’t?)

For these two heartbeats, I know I’m glad. You and time and life and I will tell the rest.